For example, in the past, if a photographer was tasked with shooting publicity photos for a rock band, she might pull tear sheets from magazines (Rolling Stone, etc). She might have scrapbooks she has collected over the years. Or, she might keep a library of books of her own to show clients. She would meet with the band and show them her ideas for the shoot.

Now, she has the world at her fingertips with the Internet. And Pinterest can help her show it to the band.

All she has to do is create a Pinterest board for that project and start pinning things to it. She can invite someone in the band, or the whole band – to join Pinterest where they can see her ideas, comment on them, discuss them, etc. She can even add them as collaborators on that board (or another) and get their own ideas.

This is what such a board might look like.

This is one great business use for Pinterest. There are tons more that do not exploit Pinterest directly for the sake of advertising and sales. Let’s hear about them in the comments.

So if you’ve been following the saga of SOPA, you are likely familiar with the author of the bill, Rep. Lamar Smith. He’s been a regular cast member in this epic struggle for Internet freedoms. If you’re short on time, though, here’s the abridged version: Lamar Smith believes the Internet is a wretched hive of scum and villainy when it comes to copyrighted material because he thinks people regard copyrights the same way they regard the newspaper you put in the bottom of a bird’s cage.

Turns out, however, that the copyright-violating apple doesn’t fall far from the tree for Mr. Smith.

VICE magazine writer Jamie Lee Curtis Taete took it upon herself today to check out Smith’s campaign website and make sure that all of the material on there was copyright-verified. Fair enough, I believe, to expect that the SOPA author should at least bear the standard (however terrible) that he’s trying to establish. Taete found a pre-SOPA’ed version of Smith’s site and discovered this image being used as the background:

Taete tracked the image back to the photographer who took the photo, DJ Schulte, and…. well, c’mon, you see where this is going…

And whaddya know? Looks like someone forgot to credit him.

I contacted DJ, to find out if Lamar had asked permission to use the image and he told me that he had no record of Lamar, or anyone from his organization, requesting permission to use it: “I switched my images from traditional copyright protection to be protected under the Creative Commons license a few years ago, which simply states that they can use my images as long as they attribute the image to me and do not use it for commercial purposes.

“I do not see anywhere on the screen capture that you have provided that the image was attributed to the source (me). So my conclusion would be that Lamar Smith’s organization did improperly use my image. So according to the SOPA bill, should it pass, maybe I could petition the court to take action against www.texansforlamarsmith.com.”

VICE said it contacted the office of Lamar Smith but, curiously, has not received a response.

And so, it is the end of the day and I have no ending for this astounding news so I will simply take a bow. See you tomorrow.

Of course, in the many years of photography, people have captured an innumerable amount of iconic images. But the question is specific: what’s the most epic? User submissions prove that the concept of “epic” means something different to everybody. To some it means important, to others it means large scale, and to a few it simply means awesome.

Although it’s virtually impossible for there to be a consensus on the most epic photo ever, this Quora thread is an amazingly fun read. I’ll give you a taste by presenting the top 10 epic photos, as currently voted by users.

Want to feel small and insignificant? Here’s the Earth from about 3.7 billion miles away. This image was taken and transmitted by Voyager 1 about 13 years after its initial launch. If you want scope, here you go – it’s hard to get more epic than this. We’re that little spec – the single pixel on the right side of the image:

User Mark Hughes says that his choice “encompasses a fundamental horror and truth about humanity today.” The image was taken during the 1993 famine in Sudan. Epic? Debatable. Heart-wrenching? Wow:

Apollo 8′s snapshot of Earth from the Moon. ‘Nuff said:

Historical significance is paramount in this classic photo taken at Tienanmen Square. One of the most iconic images of the 20th century:

This image from the Hubble telescope is mind-warping. I’ll let user Phillip Schaffer describe why it’s so epic to him – “Background – as a pure act of curiosity, in 1995 the Hubble was aimed at a very small patch of sky thought to be empty. Data were added up over 10 days to make the image, and what was seen was a total surprise. The area was packed with galaxies. The size of the image below covers an area of sky the size of a dime viewed at 75 feet. Look at the number of galaxies and extrapolate that to the entire sky. Then multiply by perhaps a billion stars in each galaxy. Then make a rough estimate of the % of stars that might have intelligent life in their planetary system. I also never tire of just examining the variety of galaxies found in this picture. Every tiny smudge of light is an entire galaxy, possibly home to intelligent beings.”

Another iconic image makes a play for most “epic” photo ever. This image of the immolation of a Buddhist monk won its photog, Malcolm Browne, the Pulitzer prize.

This image captures three big events: On the left, fireworks. Barely visible in the middle is Comet McNaught. And on the far right, a thunderstorm. Pretty epic.

High-fiving a whale. That is all:

This photo was taken on September 11th at the World Trade Center. The photographer, Bill Biggart, was killed shortly after taking the photo. One Quora user writes, “Epic story, not epic photo.” What do you think?

Finally, number 10 in Quora users’ minds is this National Geographic image of camels in the desert. It gets a little better when you realize the photo was taken from high above during a sunset and the black images are only shadows:

What do you think of the picks by Quora users? What are you favorite images ever? Let us know in the comments.

[Lead Image is #12 on the Quora thread - goodbye, sound barrier!]

[Major Hat Tip to Google+ Chief Architect Yonatan Zunger for his Google+ post pointing me in the direction of this thread]

She said, “Never turn down money. If they didn’t want to give it to you, they wouldn’t have given it to you.”

True story.

What if you could have received some of that wonderful grandmotherly advice about the internet? Boy, that sure would have made things a lot easier.

Spanish advertising and creative director Chacho Puebla has created an series of photographs – an installation really – that he calls Grandmother Tips. “Just a few tips that my grandmother should have given me, but unfortunately never did,” he says.

When you’re younger you think you´ll never fall into that same kind of discourse, until you find yourself talking about stupid (cliché) stuff with your kid, about how important school is and if you don´t have a degree you´re nobody. I hope I can give better advice some day. In the meantime, here are some tips my grandmother should have given me.

The awesome old woman in the photos is actually his great-aunt, but you get the message. Here are some examples of that sage wisdom only age can provide (internet style) –

What sage advice about the internet would you give your children or grandchildren? Let us know in the comments.

[Chacho Puebla via Ultralinx]

The new technique, which they call femto-photography, involves shooting a laser pulse as a flash and recording the light at about 1 trillion FPS. The laser pulse lasts less than one trillionth of a second, and that coupled with a narrow field of view meas that what you’re about to see “is captured over several minutes by repeated and periodic sampling.”

Here’s a pretty technical explanation of the awesome light-into-a-coke-bottle video you just saw:

The new technique, which we call femto-photography, consists of femtosecond laser illumination, picosecond-accurate detectors and mathematical reconstruction techniques. Our light source is a Titanium Sapphire laser that emits pulses at regular intervals every ~13 nanoseconds. These pulses illuminate the scene, and also trigger our picosecond accurate streak tube which captures the light returned from the scene. The streak camera has a reasonable field of view in horizontal direction but very narrow (roughly equivalent to one scan line) in vertical dimension.

At every recording, we can only record a movie of this narrow field of view. In the movie, we record roughly 480 frames and each frame has a roughly 1.71 picosecond exposure time. Through a system of mirrors, we orient the view of the camera towards different parts of the object and capture a movie for each view. We maintain a fixed delay between the laser pulse and our movie starttime. Finally, our algorithm uses this captured data to compose a single movie of roughly 480 frames each with an effective exposure time of 1.71 picosconds.

What’s the use of such a technique? Medical imaging, for one. It could also serve a purpose in an industrial or scientific setting. The researchers hope that at some point in the near future, this type of camera can be available for the masses in what would be an amazing advancement in consumer photography.

Here’s a way to visualize just how fast the light is actually moving and just how amazing this really is (condensed from the NYT):

That “movie” you saw of the light traveling through that Coke bottle was created by recording around 500 frames in a billionth of a second. Like I mentioned before, a narrow field of view makes it so that this process must be repeated over and over to build a complete picture of the scene. If they tracked the flight of a bullet in this way, that movie wouldn’t last 2 minutes like the one above. It would last 3 years.

What do you think? Do you see your iPhone 10 being able to capture at the speed of light?

For a visual explanation of the technology, check out this video below:

“We have two people working on Android now,” Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram said at the LeWeb conference in Paris. “I’m excited to be able to see our numbers today nearly double.”

Instagram, which allows users to apply multiple effects to their photos, via filters, has a staggering userbase of 50 million on iOS devices, according to CNET. Those are some huge numbers when you consider they’re competeing daily with the likes of Facebook and Apple.

No additional Instagram for Android details, or timeline, were announced at Leweb.

Will Instagram be a success on Android devices? Tell us your thoughts below.

Buon appetito.

Shared by Gheorghe Chesler.

Shared by Helen Sotiriadis.

Shared by Karen Hutton.

Shared by Mark Etios.

Shared by Martin Rak.

Shared by Matt Weber.

Shared by Miki Gerlašinský.

Shared by Ralph de Pagter.

Shared by Sean Bagshaw.

Shared by Thomas Hawk.

Earbuds you say?

You read that correctly. Basically you just need to plug in the earbuds, open your camera app, and you’ll the have the ability to use the volume button as a cable release. This is huge for iPhone photographers, as taking shots with a camera can be quite taxing sometimes, especially if you don’t have the steadiest of hands. I’m sure we can all agree that iPhones don’t come with the best shutter buttons, and often times you’ll blur a photo just trying to take the photo. Using your earbuds as a cable release will also all you to take burst shots, which was next to impossible to do with the iPhone.

I took the following test photo of Rafael, and his toy collection, utilizing the earbuds as a cable release.

I know you’re probably thinking it, and the answer is yes… you can pair your iPhone with various Bluetooth devices and get the same effect. If your Bluetooth device allows you to control the volume of your iPhone, you should be able to take photos with it.

It should be noted that the volume buttons to map correctly to your iPhone for this to be possible though, and all Bluetooth devices might not work.

Do you know of any other neat things you can do with the iPhone? Tell us if the comment section below.

The most popular camera on the site is the iPhone 4, and has been for some time. Of course, this is mostly out of convenience – so many people are walking around with their Apple smartphones on them at all times. Of course a popular smartphone with a decent camera is going to be incredibly well-represented on a photo sharing site.

But the brand new iPhone 4S is making a surge on Flickr. It is now the second-most popular camera phone in use on the site.

As you can see, the iPhone 4 still holds a dominating lead over the 4S. Yesterday, 72,656 photos taken with the 4 were uploaded to the site. Compare that with the 4S, which only saw 21,899 uploads. But while you can see the the iPhone 4 has peaked and is on a slow decline, iPhone 4S usage has exploded since its launch in October.

This shouldn’t be too surprising. Flickr is heavily populated with iPhone camera users. And the iPhone 4S has been a great seller (over 4 million its first weekend), due in large part to its 8 megapixel camera that’s been getting rave reviews. As far as smartphone cameras go, it’s up there at the top.

It has a ways to go, but it probably won’t be too long before the iPhone 4S becomes the most widely used smartphone camera on Flickr. And with Apple’s track record of holding top overall spot on Flickr, the iPhone 4S could become the most widely used camera of any type on Flickr.

That, of course, assumes that the iPhone 5 of the future doesn’t come along too soon and relegate the 4S camera to a distant thing of the past.

[Lead Image taken with iPhone 4S. Courtesy]

Daguerre studied theatre design, painting, and architecture as a young man, eventually teaming up with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1822. Niépce was known for his creation of the world’s first permanent photo, called a Heliograph.

The daguerreotype was officially announced, after many years of perfecting the process, with the help of the French Academy of Sciences in 1839. Daguerre used silver-covered copper plates to make direct positive images.

The daguerreotype process of photography reduced the exposure time from eight hours to 30 minutes or so. Still a long exposure time, it was a revolutionary improvement that eventually allowed for photographs to be taken of live subjects (the first daguerreotypes still focused on still images).

Here’s an early daguerreotype by Daguerre, circa 1837:

This a daguerreotype that is the first to ever show a person. Taken in Paris, the long exposure time required the people present in the photograph to stand still longer than 10 minutes.

The Library of Congress has a great database of known daguerreotype makers and their works. Here’s one by S.H. Whitmore of future first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, circa 1846.

Daguerre died of a heart attack in 1851. He is one of only 72 people to have their names inscribed in the Eiffel Tower.